Alison Fraser

Publications

Books

• Nice: Collected Poems by David Melnick. Co-edited with Benjamin Friedlander, Jeffrey Jullich, and Ron Silliman. Brooklyn, NY: Nightboat Books, 2023.
• The Collages of Helen Adam. Ed. Fort Collins, CO and Victoria, TX: Further Other Book Works/Cuneiform Press, 2017.

Articles

• "Graduate Student-Curated Exhibits: A Study." Society of American Archivists, Case Studies on Teaching with Primary Sources, Case #31 (Oct. 2025): np.
• "Creating the Twentieth-Century Literary Archives: A Short History of the Poetry Collection at the University at Buffalo." Information & Culture 55.3 (Fall 2020): 252-270.
  
• "Mass Print, Clipping Bureaus, and the Pre-Digital Database: Reexamining Marianne Moore's Collage Poetics through the Archives." Journal of Modern Literature 43.1 (Fall 2019): 19-33.
• "Teaching Creative Writing in Special Collections." RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage 20.2 (Fall 2019): 70-82.
• "Diasporic Object Lessons: Material Identity and the Korean Diaspora in the Work of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha." Asian Diasporas. Spec. issue of WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly 47.1-2 (Spring/Summer 2019): 31-47. 

Exhibition Catalogs

• Access Forbidden: Banned and Censored Books, 1549-1940. University at Buffalo Libraries, 2026.
• The Language of Magic: Queer Occult Poetics. University at Buffalo Libraries, 2025.
• "That all books might published be": Sylvia Beach's Ulysses. University at Buffalo Libraries, 2023.

Research

My research interests include twentieth-century Anglophone poetics, historical bibliography, book history, material culture, print ephemera, feminist theory, critical archival studies, and special collections pedagogy.

Professional Memberships

• Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL)
  • Editorial Board Member, RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage, 2024-present
• Rare Books & Manuscripts Section (RBMS) of ACRL
  • Conference Planning Committee, RBMS 2027, Reno, NV
  • Budget and Development Committee, 2024-2026
  • Co-chair, Conference Planning Committee, RBMS 2024, University of California, Irvine
  • Mentor, 2020-2021, 2024-2025
  • Membership & Professional Development Committee, 2019-2021
• Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) Collective
  • 2026 TPS Fest Conference Volunteer
  • Peer Mentorship, Jan.-Mar. 2023
  • Facilitators Committee, 2020-2021
  • Tech Tools Sandbox Sessions Planning Committee, 2020-2021
  • 2021 Unconference Planning Committee and Tech Team Co-Lead
  • 2020 Unconference Planning Committee
  • Community Calls Planning Committee, May-July 2020
• Modern Language Association
  • Executive Committee, Libraries and Research Forum
    • Past chair (2026-2027), chair (2025-2026), secretary (2024-2025)

Presentations

Selected presentations:

• "'Something of a Witch': Queer Women of the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance," Lesbian Lives Conference, CUNY Graduate Center, Oct. 2025
• Roundtable participant for an event celebrating the exhibit After Words: Visual and Experimental Poetry in Little Magazines and Small Presses, 1960-2025, Grolier Club, New York, May 2025. Invited
• "The Book, Evolving," a2ru (Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities) conference, Rochester Institute of Technology, Nov. 2024
• "Sweet Company: Helen Adam and the Archives at the Poetry Collection," Hollins Universtiy, Roanoke, VA, 1 Oct. 2021. Invited
• "Beyond Manuscripts: Teaching with Special Formats in Special Collections," lightning talk panel, Rare Books and Manuscripts Section Annual Conference, June 2021
• "Teaching Book Objects in Online Creative Writing Classes," Integrating Library, Archives, and Special Collections into Creative Writing Pedagogy: An Experiential Symposium, University of Calgary, AB, 18-19 May 2021
• "Public Readership and the Private Press: An Archival Recovery of Erica Marx’s The Hand & Flower Press," 20th- and 21st-Century British and Anglophone Forum roundtable, Annual Convention of the Modern Language Assocation, Jan. 2021
• "Homemade Books in Twentieth-Century Poetics: A Feminist Bibliography," Bibliographical Society of America, NYC, 24 Jan. 2020. Invited
• "Poetic Manifestations: Witchcraft and Magic in the Work of Helen Adam," Occult Humanities Conference, New York University, 4-6 Oct. 2019. Plenary presentation. Invited
• "Homemade Books: Ephemeral Book Objects in Twentieth-Century Book History," Modern Language Association, Chicago, 3-6 Jan. 2019
• "From Wastebasket to Library: Creating the Twentieth-Century Literary Archives," The Past, Present, and Future of Libraries Conference, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 27-28 Sept. 2018